Manton burst into laughter, somehow out of place in the room where we still were in the company of death. "An author on the lot at the filming of his picture, to bother the director and to change everything? Out! When the scenario's done he's through. He's lucky to get his name on the screen. It's not the story but the direction which counts, except that you've got to have a good idea to start with, and a halfway decent script to make your lay-outs from. Anyhow—" He sobered a bit, perhaps realizing that he was going counter to the tendency to have the author on the lot. "Millard and Stella weren't on speaking terms. She divorced him, you know."
"Do you know much about the personal affairs of Miss Lamar?"
"Well"—Manton's eyes sought the floor for a moment—"Like everyone else in pictures, Stella was the victim of a great deal of gossip. That's the experience of any girl who rises to a position of prominence and—"
"How were the relations between Miss Lamar and yourself?" interrupted
Kennedy.
"What do you mean by that?" Manton flushed quickly.
"You have had no trouble, no disagreements recently?"
"No, indeed. Everything has been very friendly between us—in a strictly business way, of course—and I don't believe I've had an unpleasant word with her since I first formed Manton Pictures to make her a star."
"You know nothing of her difficulties with her husband?"
"Naturally not. I seldom saw her except at the studio, unless it was some necessary affair such as a screen ball here, or perhaps in Boston or Philadelphia or some near-by city where I would take her for effect—"
Kennedy turned to Mackay. "Will you arrange to keep the people I have yet to question separate from the ones I have examined already?"